Kacy & Clayton and Marlon Williams/The Dirty Nil
Kacy & Clayton and Marlon Williams
Plastic Bouquet // New West Records
I’ve been feeling nostalgic. I’m missing my family, yes, but I’m finding myself longing for the days when I had someone to take care of me, protect me. Days when I saw the world through innocent and carefree eyes, my chubby little legs running down the path at the cabin into my dad’s arms. Saskatchewan folk/roots duo Kacy & Clayton’s Plastic Bouquet, featuring New Zealand singer/songwriter Marlon Williams, somehow brings me back to that place. The album touches on some darkly somber subjects, from car crashes, plundered rivers, failed monogamy... you know... all the bluesy traditional folk ballad topics that remind me of the songs I’d hear my dad listening to when he was working in the garage.
Listening to the waltz-ey (is that a word?) swings of “Old Fashioned Man” and the bluegrass sway of “Plastic Bouquet'' brings me back to dancing on my Grandpa’s shoes in a musty old Legion for a cousin's wedding. The stand-out song for me is “Arahura”, sung with Williams’ arresting balladeer voice, and filled in with Kacy Anderson’s angelic harmonies and Clayton Linthicum’s steely guitar. The song delves into New Zealand folklore of the river Arahura, and takes on the perspective of the plundered river on the country’s west coast.
Coming straight out of the mystical pedal-guitar haze of New Zealand folk stories, we jump into an organ driven up-tempo “I’m Unfamiliar” with it’s hypnotic hook and call-and-response. Marlon’s voice pulls us into a swaying 1950’s trance with “I Wonder Why”, which made me want to punch whoever it was that was fooling around on him. “Last Burning Ember” is a siren song with a surfy sound that made me want to shimmy my shoulders a little bit.
The accolades and collaborations that both Kacy & Clayton and Marlon Williams have received are well deserved for their brand of folk/roots Americana. Winning awards and working with Jeff Tweedy on their 2017 release The Siren's Song, Kacy & Clayton have Juno and Polaris Prize nominations under their belt, not to mention touring with The Decemberists. Williams’ has also won multiple New Zealand Music Awards and played with Bruce Springsteen, Florence & the Machine and Lorde. He even appeared in the 2018 Bradley Cooper-directed film A Star is Born, after Cooper saw Williams perform at The Troubadour in Los Angeles and asked him personally to appear in the film.
Artists from across the world, one currently enjoying summer in the southern hemisphere, the others full-on in a Saskatoon winter, find common ground in their love for Western country, folk and troubadour traditions in Plastic Bouquet. “We wanted to see if we could meld hemispheres,” says Marlon. “I’m bringing this Pacific style of country music with the harmonies and choral elements. Kacy & Clayton have a super identifiable sound. They embody everything I love about North American folk. There’s a rural weariness where they’re telling tales that have been told a million times in their own way. I feel the strength in it.” Kacy sums it up with a smile, “The three of us are just old timey kids.” Well, I seem to be an old timey kid too.
- Mo Lawrance
The Dirty Nil
Fuck Art // Dine Alone Records
For the better part of the last decade, The Dirty Nil have been creating a unique combination of sounds, spanning from Heavy Metal, to Pop Punk, 80s indie rock, and beyond. The success of their last two albums is shown with their ever growing fan base, and the big names they have shared the stage with such as The Who, Marilyn Manson, Against Me! etc. I had the pleasure of seeing them live at Edmonton’s first (and so far only) Chaos AB festival in the summer of 2019, and I was not only blown away by their sonic attack, but also the energy and stage presence each member possessed! This band is immediately infectious and will have you wondering where they have been all your life.
On the first day of this already chaotic year of 2021, The Dirty Nil struck again with the release of their third studio album, Fuck Art. The album was recorded entirely in the age of the Corona virus, and the age of all the sickening events that made 2020 unfortunately memorable. With that being said, none of the songs are about the wild events of 2020, and are more focused on relationship troubles, the fear of getting older, dealing with keyboard warriors, getting your bike stolen… you get the picture. So basically, this album can help you forget all the atrocities of last year, and remember all the reasons life sucked before hand. Jokes aside though, the lyrical content on this record is incredibly relatable and can make people feel less alone in the problems they’re dealing with. Due to the timing of the recording, the band was faced with lots of adversity, with their producer living in Seattle, and the studio closing forcing them to track guitars in only two days. Though this may have been the case, the quality of the record does not reflect this, and nothing sounds underwhelming or out of place at all!
This album is jam packed with highlights, starting with the first track, “Doomboy.” As someone who normally listens to metal and hardcore, this song is unsurprisingly my favourite song on the album. The first few seconds of the song might make you think you were listening to a straight forward thrash band, then Luke Bentham’s soothing pop punk voice hits the track and abolishes that quick assumption! The following song, “Blunt Force Concussion” is another personal highlight, this song fills me with a heavy dose of nostalgia, while still having an undoubtedly fresh quality to it! I also love the sentiment that serious head trauma is still less painful than falling in and out of love. The next song that stuck out to me is “Ride or Die,” this one has a heavy rock energy that gives the listener a boost of with it’s catchy riffs and a fierce, confident vocal performance! There are plenty more standouts on this album, but to be brief, I’ll pick one more to cover, and that song is called “To the Guy Who Stole My Bike”. This track starts off smooth and gentle, but quickly picks up in pace, especially during the epic guitar soloing right before the outro! The lyrics are not solely about a stolen bike, it, to me, touches on karma and how everyone will eventually get theirs in the end. There are no weak points on this record, and every song on its own is just as strong as the rest!
Overall, Fuck Art is a fun filled sonic rollercoaster, with lots of self reflection in the lyrics to potentially make the listener look at themselves a little deeper. I think this mix of fun and seriousness is an important thing to have in music, especially for this brand of vicious pop punk! I can’t wait to hear this material live when we can get back to concerts.
- Justin Olson
